Photoshop CC: Adobe responds to reaction

Yesterday's announcement by Adobe that it will cease 'perpetual license' sales of Photoshop and its Creative Suite counterparts has generated considerable backlash here on dpreview and across the web. With such a significant change in store, we spoke today with Adobe VP of Creative Solutions, Winston Hendrickson and Bryan O'Neill Hughes, Senior Product Manager for Photoshop for Adobe's response to the uproar.

At the conclusion of the interview, we've put together a brief set of FAQs regarding Adobe's Creative Cloud announcement.

Winston Hendrickson, VP of Creative Solutions, Adobe Systems, Inc.

Q&A with Adobe VP of Creative Solutions, Winston Hendrickson

Were you expecting such a negative response from the photographic community?

We expected a higher degree of this type of reaction from the hobbyist photographic community because currently there's not a lot of photography-specific value in our subscription products. That's why we've taken the unusual steps of Tom Hogarty's appearance on The Grid [a Scott Kelby webisode] showing potential Lightroom CC features and the Photoshop Sneak Peek where we showed new features like Camera Shake reduction.

Is a subscription model less prone to piracy?

While service options that connect to our servers are inherently less prone to piracy, once a user downloads software to their computer the piracy threat is the same as for our perpetual products.

The reason behind the subscription-only move is the logistics of supporting two sets of software. The last 12 months of development was brutal. And there were results we were not happy with. We have decided to focus on the CC products.

As far as the future of CS applications, in his Adobe MAX keynote, David Wadhwani said, 'We have no plans' to continue perpetual licenses. We are not ruling that out in the future.

How do you justify the price increase to photographers?

Last year we actually cut the price of Lightroom in half in order to open it up to a broader market of photographers.

What assurances can our readers have that Lightroom will not become a subscription-only option?

[Bryan O'Neil Hughes] Lightroom is for photographers. And the Lightroom team is very aware of the reaction by photographers to Photoshop CC. We don't have plans to make Lightroom a subscription-only option but we do envision added functionality for CC members using Lightroom.

What support can CS6 users expect?

Barring something unforeseen from Apple and Microsoft, we plan to update Photoshop CS6 for the next Mac and Windows operating system releases. Once Camera Raw 8 is completed for Photoshop CC, we are going to release a version of it for CS6 that includes any new camera support but without any of the new CC tools and features.

In addition, DNG Converter will remain a free option to convert new Raw file formats for use in older versions of Photoshop.

What happens to Photoshop CC and my files if I cancel my subscription?

We do not delete any files or software from your computer. You will not be able to use the software but the files you've created and saved on your hard drive are left intact. And you don't need a valid license or Internet connection to uninstall the software.

What can you say to users concerned that a subscription model removes their option to at least stick with an older version of software if they no longer want to continue paying for it?

That's the trade-off for the benefits of a continuously updated application. At the time you decide to stop paying for it, yes you lose access, but after, say 12 months, you've ended up with a different product than the one you subscribed to, because of the new features that have been added. And for existing perpetual users, Photoshop CS can co-exist alongside and independently from Photoshop CC.

One final point I'd like to address is the misconception that you have to be continuously connected to the Internet to use a CC application. Monthly subscribers can go for as long as 30 days without connecting to the Internet for license validation. Users with an annual commitment can go for as long as 99 days.

Reader FAQs

Below, the editorial staff at dpreview have compiled answers to some of the most commonly asked questions our readers have asked since Adobe's announcement. The explanations here are culled from information Adobe has posted online since the announcement of the Creative Cloud membership.

What is CC?

Adobe has rebranded its upcoming versions of applications with the 'CC' (Creative Cloud) moniker. They will be made available on June 17. A month-to-month or discounted annual CC subscription gives you access to all of the Adobe Creative Suite titles, including Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, InDesign, Premiere and After Effects. You can see a full list of the available software here.

Why am I being forced to work in the 'cloud'?

The simple answer is that you're not. Once you've subscribed, you still download Photoshop and install it on your preferred hard drive. You can open, edit and save files locally just as you would in CS6. While Adobe is touting the connectivity and collaborative features of its CC applications, and providing 20GB of online storage, you can choose not to take advantage of these services.

You will need an Internet connection to download, install and license the software, of course. You will also be asked to connect to the web periodically in order to validate the license. At launch, annual subscribers will be able to use the products for 99 consecutive days while offline. Eventually, this offline ability will be extended to 180 consecutive days without Internet access.

I'll never use Dreamweaver or InDesign. Can I subscribe just to Photoshop?

Yes. Adobe is offering a special introductory price for CS3 and later owners of $9.99 per month for the first 12 months. The regular price for a Photoshop CC-only subscription is $19.99 per month with an annual commitment and $29.99 per month for the ability to cancel at any time. You should also know that Photoshop CC includes all of the additional features and functionality that was limited to Photoshop Extended in CS versions.

What happens to ACR support for CS6?

As Tom Hogarty states on Adobe's Lightroom blog, CS6 users will gain the camera compatibility updates set to arrive on June 17 in ACR 8. These updates, however, will not include any of the new features seen in the Photoshop CC demo or Lightroom 5 Beta release, such as the Upright tool, Advanced Healing Brush or Radial Gradient Filter. Adobe is not providing a timeline for how long new camera support will continue for the ACR version of Photoshop CS6.

Can I still buy Lightroom?

Yes. Lightroom, while available as part of the Creative Cloud bundle, can still be purchased as a standalone piece of software at $149 for new users and $79 for owners of any previous version. Adobe Acrobat can be purchased as a standalone title as well.

Can I still buy Photoshop CS6?

Photoshop CS6 is still currently available for a downloadable purchase here on Adobe's site.

Do I really need Photoshop?

One thing that Adobe's move has certainly done is make many photographers ask themselves whether they need all, or even a majority of tools Photoshop currently offers. Indeed, whenever we write about newly announced Photoshop features, there's always a segment of users who claim the features are of no use to them and that they'll happily stick with a previous version. And many, of course have adopted a 'skip every other upgrade' policy.

For users working primarily with Raw files, the current version of Lightroom offers a vast majority of the tools that users producing traditional photographic output require. Indeed, unless you're creating composite images or performing fashion/beauty retouching, we'd argue most Lightroom users are making far fewer trips to Photoshop than they did in previous versions.

And if your image editing needs are limited to exposure and contrast adjustments to 8-bit files there's Photoshop Elements, which is available as a standalone purchase for $99.

Comments

Trust is hard won and easily lost in an instant.This is an excellent example of corporate arrogance where they are trying to force a business model on customers who have no choice but to comply. Beware Adobe, the world can change in an Instant and you may be on the wrong side of change.

Customers buy from companies they like and feel good about. The attitudes you are exhibiting are not likeable and I am not happy to be a user of your products under this scenario. This CC thing is certainly not good value to many millions of your customers. Look at the mess Microsoft has got itself into because of corporate arrogance. It has taken some years but the sword may yet fall.

I have been in IT for over 20 years, but the future isn't as pretty as one might think. Companies are forcing the consumer to take a step backwards to help increase revenue while distracting us with the old "it's cloud based technology as to make us believe that somehow this is a step forward and for our benefit. Once they own you and you have no choice but to pay a monthly fee to access your software and/or your files you are locked into their model.

My prediction:

The future of computing is a step backwards IMHO. You don't own anything. The device you will use is a basically a dummy terminal attached to the internet. When servers go down or a company goes out of business your SOL. You don't own anything, they own you. You pay them to do what you can already do now.

The future:

1) An under-powered tablet PC.1) $40 a month for internet access2) $50 a month for your cloud based OS3) $30 a month for photo editing tools4) $20 a month for office editing tools

We should really fingt against that. I can see a day in the future (not too far) when you have to pay a fifty bucks just to be alowed to turn your pc on. Do we really, really like it? Above all advantages it *might* have? My answer as long as i can - certainly NO.

Netflix and Internet based channels are a response to predatory pricing by Cable and Satellite companies. Consumer will find an alternative to avoid high costs... there will always be somebody who would be willing to capitalize on discontent.

Nice analogy by SemperAugustus. I've been using Neflix off and on for several years now. The current plan is $8 a month for unlimited streaming and I can cancel anytime. U-verse charges us almost $80 for 200 channels of crap.

I've never been an Adobe power user, Elements has always been enough for me but it looks like I won't be upgrading either.

This is not for me. I'm really tired of having to re-learn UI every time some software expert decides that this icon shouldn't be here, and this little gizmo should do this. That's why I spend the money upfront, and learn and use what I have. To bad Adobe has chosen this direction.

The cost is way too much for enthusiast photographers, it's probably too much for someone struggling to get a part time photography business going. I think a competitor will fill the gap with the right software at the right price.

I work in Higher Ed IT and we are re-thinking our use of Adobe software on campus - even with ed discounts our costs will be rising substantially. Adobe was way cool in the early days, not so much in the last few years.

Capitalism? I love capitalism! Capitalism is the the right to private property, the right to own. Adobe wants to take that right away from me. I can't own the tools I use, I can't even open my content that I spent countless hours on if I stop paying Adobe. In essence I don't own the fruits of my labor. Really?

What I CAN do is embrace the competition.

Here is a CONSTRUCTIVE suggestion: after a year of payments I own what I paid for - if I stop paying, you stop the updates. Fair?

You are so correct. What happens if an update comes out that you don't like or just plain sucks? The last version of Lightroom is slower than molases. If I was told I had to use that, I'd not be happy.

In other words "Adobe realises that photographers are annoying a**h*les and we have to pretend to bend over backwards to make them happy. We'd like to be rid of them really, and one day we'll work out a way we can get their money and have our way too."

He looks arrogant in his portrait and his answers do not ring true or genuine. They are evasive and obviously there is a significant hidden agenda.

His comment "We don't have plans to make Lightroom a subscription-only option but we do envision added functionality for CC members using Lightroom." is extremely evasive and as we have just seen with Adobe plans can change in an instant. By having added Lightroom functionality for CC users the actual perpetual Lightroom purchasers are getting a hobbled product. Certainly a strategy to encourage migration to high priced CC and dump the rest later.

As to being able to purchase CS6, I have checked the web site and there is no option to upgrade to CS6 from CS5.5. You have to pay full price regardless of the many thousands of dollars investment you have already made in Adobe's products.

What arrogance, this just proves that monopolies are bad. These people all have stock options which they are driving regardless of customer satisfaction.

I use photoshop, and I'm certainly not happy about this, and I certainly won't buy a subscription. That said..

From a pure business standpoint, this must make sense. I mean, hopefully they aren't total fools, and I'm sure they aren't. They may anger many folks, but at the end of the day, they bring in more money. That's the plan. I guess if hobby and semi pro photographers represent 10% of your market, and professionals/graphic artists make up 90% and for those pros an extra $200 a year is a drop in the bucket, then why not raise the price for the 90% that will accept it rather than keep it low to keep the 10% happy?

I really despise this whole "rent your software by the month/year" thing. Would not be surprised if this INCREASES piracy. I mean, photoshop has always been a highly pirated piece of software due to it's price. Make it more expensive and you lose that marginal group that was buying it previously.

Well it may increase piracy in the short term but clearly as OSs develop the old installed versions of CS will sooner or later become inoperable. Whereas the cloud version will be kept up to date with OS development, obviously. Eventually the installed earlier versions will no longer function and thereby become extinct. Unless you're prepared to run an out of date PC exclusively to enable them. Which is not such a bad idea.

I looked a bit more in detail to the creative cloud offering. I was running a Creative Agency with 4 seats a while back. So for a creative team I would say Creative Cloud is a blessing. It is maybe same price or even a significant cost down depending how many packages you were running before. And it is a huge convenience ( read time saver = money saver ) from the perspective of a system administrator. Not a bad deal at all. Plus you now get access to all tools and thus your creative team will be motivated with all the new toys.

So why is it Photographers are treated not so nicely. Doubling the cost is rough. No conveniences added for us. No any extras. When the community asks serious questions they are dodged, and worse, we are told that they expected bad feedback from photographers, but hey, never mind them.

This is the more confusing as Lightroom was renamed Photoshop Lightroom and then Photoshop just become remove !

They are pretty cool over there at Adobe, the VP of Creative Solutions not being impressed at all by the reactions... I hope he isn't disappointed much by the user base at it's mild reactions. I'd like to try some of that stuff he's having myself...

Adobe's decision won't be solo. Revenues from software sales are destined to stagnate or decline, unless the publishers adopt a similar way to convert their products into a sort of rental service. The old model, which involved sale of new products, followed by periodic upgrades, will fail as the margins of improvements and the motivation to pay for upgrades both narrow.

Adobe has numerous competitors, each offering programs similar to PS or Premier, for relatively low prices. Most are either losing money or face a decline in margins parallel to the collapse in sales of P&S cameras or camcorders. The dip in PC sales also cuts the opportunity to sell to people who upgrade a desktop and want new software to go with it. Tablets, meanwhile, were born for "cloud" applications, since their on-board processors and memory are modest, and they draw their breath from WiFi or G3 links to the Internet.

Adobe states "your Creative Cloud desktop applications (such as Photoshop and Illustrator) are installed directly on your computer", so in spite of the name, it doesn't sound like a cloud-only service.

Seriously jkoch2 - that must be sarcasm about tablets. If you think tablets will replace 21" wide gamut monitors in any sense you clearly have no clue.And this move by Adobe is not meant to address tablets in that the whole of Photoshop is run locally. That is not possible on today's tablets - nor will it be anytime in the foreseeable future.

This move will be a GREAT motivator for other companies to deisgn new software.

PaintShop Pro X5 Ultimate for $70 is an fantastic piece of software and it's probably going to be developed even more now that Adobe pulled this stunt. If they're smart they will specify "No-Subscription Needed"!

This is a reason I looked into GIMP many years ago. A good majority of others always stuck with PSCSx for whatever reasons. Even Elements, PaintShopPro, and other programs are will work for most photographers.

I have to say I don't really blame Adobe for this move. We all know it has to do with piracy. Many don't like this move, but they have to do what they have to do...they should just be honest about why they are doing it.

It has nothing to do with piracy. Zero. Haven't you read anything? His answer to the question about piracy above, perhaps? Adobe has two product lines and they want to concentrate on just one. And why? Because if they charge me $20 a month for PS I won't notice the $250 upgrade cost or the several hundred for the full version I first bought. However, since I already own PS CS5 they'll have an impossible time getting me to buy in. However, all the new people thing "great, it's cheaper to get started" because they never had another option. With other companies filling the void of a permanent license purchase I think Adobe will eventually reconsider their strategy. Not only that, concentrating on two products being a problem is also total nonsense. How about one pricing scheme for CS7 that includes a full license and one that is their CC model? Is that really a big undertaking?

I congratulate Adobe for doing their part in promoting Free and Open Source Software, which is the unintended consequence of their recent actions.

Sure you have The GIMP and Cinepaint for photo editing, but you also have Darktable and RawTherapee for RAW conversion/lightroom type work, you have Hugin which uses Enfuse/Enblend for photo stitching and blending and you have ImageMagick for pretty much anything ;)

These are the tools I use daily for my photography as I run on Linux full time. I hope those people who are annoyed at this move by Adobe spend some time exploring the alternatives out there.

Ah yes RawTherapee 4, which on a Windows computer basically can't look in any and every folder that you may have put raws into. And then doesn't nearly equal ACR as raw conversion software, well at least RawThera is better at raw extraction than UFRaw, when you can get it to work.

As a hobbyist I do not like the idea. It is obliging you to pay continuously. Most hobyist have a limited and possibily quite variable budget, They would normally decide wether they would prefer to spend thier money on a PS ugrade or a new lens.

Additionaly, the time spent on hobbies can vary. I have been through periods when my photography has been limited to family events and such. And hobbies may suffer from force maggiore...imagine a family member is seriously ill, you have little time for hobbies and maybe things are tight financially.

OK, you 'suspend' your subscription, but that means you can't do anything at all with your files until you resubscribe for at least a month.

This seems a poor deal for many, if not most, hobbyists.

On the other hand, I am not a PS user...but I have been ripped of **twice** by Corel, so maybe hobbyists cannot get a better deal esewhere.

1) I purchased a new camera and needed to upgrade to get the RAW support. Days later a new version was released. I wondered wether I was eligable for a few upgrade. No reply to emails requests (normal fo Corel). Eventually phoned up, nobody was available because in sales conference. Two more dud calls. Finally, a response...YES, you can get a free upgrade up to one month. Catch, you had to request it within a month....and 1 month had just passed (after being fobbed off by the same person on the phone for a couple of weeks).

2) I also used Bibble, I was pleased when Corel aquired them....maybe the two would be integrated. Alas no. About 3 months after the merger computer went titsup. I had original install package, licensing and billing info on backup storage, but I could not activate the new install because the Bibble site had been frozen and just pointed to the After shot site. But Corel took no interest in the problem, they said I should go to the Bibble site...loop.

In my work I've been using their Corel Draw Graphics Suite since version 3 alongside Adobe products. While there are a few things that the Adobe apps do better (and Corel don't even have a product that competes with InDesign), in many cases it is much easier and faster to do things with a Corel application which costs much less.

Even though I have Adobe CS, I probably spend more time and get more done productively using the corresponding Corel applications - so I think they are an excellent value. Mind you I no longer see any compelling need to upgrade their applications either as older versions do pretty well everything I want with less resource demands.

If you think it through, I don't see why most people wouldn't actually be supportive. Examples: If you want to buy a full blown PS CS6, it would cost 500 or 600 bucks, right? That means you have to lay out that much all at once, a considerable ding for most people. Here, you can pay $19 a month and get every single update forever, exactly when it comes out. Sure, at that rate after 2 1/2 years you would have saved up enough to buy it, but how often are you going to want to catch up with technology anyway?

The real bargain comes for the entire suite of applications. Right now I'm paying $29 a month. Saving up for the suite, it would take me 7 1/2 years to buy it, I still wouldn't get all the applications included in the CC, and I would be facing when to upgrade. Now, at the advertised rate of $49, it would take me less time, ( 5.1 years) but still...

Lastly, if you're the struggling artist, you probably can't afford PS the old way. As pointed out, it will still be pirated.

Raincheck, good points, but look at things from this perspective. I still use Photoshop CS3. Yes it's quite old, but the tools within CS3 are every bit as good as tools in the latest versions of Photoshop. I don't require many of the new features found in the latest version and some can be added with a third party plugin or actions. Considering this, do you really think that after using CS3 since 2008 that I would like to make monthly payments to keep it ? That's exactly what this subscription model entails, having to pay for something forever to keep it, even if you do not need the latest greatest features.

And yet with my current version of PS CS5 I don't pay a dime since I first purchased the upgrade years ago. Trust me, once you've paid $50 a month for the next ten years (the length of time I've owned PS) you might think "it would be really nice if I could use this software, just as it is right now, without having to pay for it any more....I don't need an update and I've paid for the software already."

This is how I saw it. I signed up for CC about 2 months ago, using my student discount I got it for $29 a month. I previously only had a copy of CS3 my work got me and did all my freelance editing on my lunch break. The near $1k for PS+LR for a personal copy was just too steep. I only make a few thousand off my freelance work in a year. $30 a month was super easy to swallow. I mean, I spend more in gas in a week than that. Plus it allowed me to also pick up 2 videography jobs because I got Premiere and After Effects, paying the cost of the subscription for the year 2x over.While I agree not actually owning any of it is frustrating, Im willing to live with it as long as they provide me with additional services every month like they do currently. 20GB of storage on top of Skydrive for photos is nice, having access to all the other software is nice.I would really like if they added support for 16-bit images in Elements. I think that would help a lot for people that cant keep up on cost

Yeah, I understand both of your points retro and howard, and they are as valid as living in reality. @HubertChen makes a good point down the posts a bit when he suggests to Adobe that there is a PS version missing in between PS Elements and CS6; one that could be "clouded" for $8 or so. A hell of an idea to make this workable for those that get caught in the cracks of this move.

Don't get me wrong; I'm one of the most private and "keep my own stuff, thank you" people that you want to meet. Despite that, this $20-50 monthly fee with 'auto-advancements' as opposed to hundreds or thousands of dollars at once is a good thing for me so far.

Except that anyone with any business sense looks at overall cost of ownership.

You can buy CS6 for $600, then use it for the next 5 years without upgrading. That works out to $120/year. The new system doubles that cost, or $240/year. Even if you were to put the $600 on a credit card and pay it off over a year, you are still way ahead by buying CS6.

Or let's say you buy the software, then upgrade every two years. So over a 6 year period you'll buy the base $600 software plus two $200 upgrades, or $166/year. Still cheaper.

True, I think the single app deal is a ripoff tho unless u really only need the 1 app. The full version u can get premiere and after effects, like I said in another post, I got to expand my business by picking up video work too.The constant light room updates are great, constantly pushing out updated features, like once a month or more.Cloud connect is great, I have a surface pro I do some of my road work on and I have PS on my desktop (cause u get 2 copies, not sure if the boxed version works that way), I can save projects into the connect folder and it auto syncs it to the other device, its great for my workflow.I'd give it a chance first. but that's just my opinion.

I understand the points made in the article, but for most people, this is another reoccurring bill that one has to add to their never ending pool of bills including mortgage, utilities, etc. And when times are tight, a monthly subscription to software will be the first to go. I think Adobe should tread carefully here: We live in a very unstable economy and the technologies found within Adobe products while rich and refined are not exclusive to Adobe itself. Another company that comes along offering a less expensive (and fully licensed) alternative product could upset Adobe's foothold on this sector. I have always liked Adobe and as a software designer I understand their approach, but I also completely understand that moves like this are 'high risk' and can make or break and entire company. Companies need to realize that their existence depends directly on customer loyalty an area that most be handled with extreme care.

Apple Final Cut Pro has no rendering support from 3D graphics card. We just have made evaluation of Adobe Premiere with a GTX 660 and it rocks. Whatever adjustments you do including white balance you can play the footage with all adjustments in real time. never waiting for rendering again.

This is my key decision maker on the Video Editing SW. Do you have an alternative SW to Premiere with CUDA / Open CL acceleration ?

Like so many here, I am in a terrible position as regards software choices. A while ago, Adobe sent me a questionnaire about a subscription only model for their software. I replied with a very clear NO. I am not just a "hobbyist" and have depended on Photoshop and Indesign to produce output for my business. Adobe apparently didn't care about my responses and now I WILL find alternatives to the apps I have depended on for a generation. Shame on them! In my business, a loyal customer is a valuable asset. Apparently that is not important to them. And regarding their subscription termination ideas, if I subscribe to a periodical, at least I still have the copies of the periodical after I cancel my subscription. Not true with your software after I cancel - this is a TERRIBLE idea and one I certainly won't support with my dollars. And I say to Winston Hendrickson - watch ASI (ticker symbol ADBE) stock fall right out of the sky. People like you ruin companies!

This ADBE pricing scheme reminds me when few years back when Oracle changed their DB pricing to a per CPU/speed model. In practice they were taxing, punishing customers who wanted top performance. Oracle saw it differently, the faster the CPU means that the bigger the DB the more $ we want.This move alienated thousands of existing Oracle customers and acted as a high barrier of entry for new customers. Sales of MSFT SQL Server took off like never before, MSFT started investing more and more in SQL Server and today it is as widely used as Oracle and one of the most successful MSFT products.In a nutshell, ignoring the Golden Rule "Him who owns the gold, makes the rules" can have unintended consequences. Time will say...

I hate to break the news to you! No CEO will look at any petition other than coming from shareholders, board members, analysts or fund managers. If you all really want to make a difference, stop buying ANY ADBE products for 1 year. When the market call the CEO they will revert this ill-conceived pricing scheme, which is what CC is, nothing else than a pricing scheme aimed at perpetuity of payments with no ownership for users.

A load of balls. Idon't want Photoshop CC. Let's hope other software developers will work the brains out to produce a HD installed program that competes with PS. This is so dissapointing! I bought every single version since CS! It's going to the dogs!

"Lightroom is for photographers. And the Lightroom team is very aware of the reaction by photographers to Photoshop CC. We don't have plans to make Lightroom a subscription-only option but we do envision added functionality for CC members using Lightroom."

So, reading between the lines, Lightroom will have less and less features unless you subscribe to CC! So, this is simply a backdoor way to force you to subscribe to CC. So, not only over time will they have no incentive to update CC products, they will have no incentive to support photographers either.

I can understand moving photographers to Lightroom, but Adobe wants to play the premium model. We will give you something much less capable over time and make believe you get some value, but if you pay WAY more, then we will give you incrementally a little more.

It is just a matter of time they simply stop supporting ACR upgrades unless you have CC.

But then - they make you buy the CS6 right away even if you haven't planned doing so yet. So it is particularly a win-win situation for Adobe - either you get in the cloud or you are getting CS6. Your money goes the same way.

This is an extremely bad spin from Adobe. Particularly:1. They expected that the hobbyist photography would have view this subscription service negatively and admitting that there was not a lot of value in the subscription model for this market segment smacks of poor understanding of what I'd say is a large part of their market. The identification as this market as only incidental to the professional one is surprising.2. Mr. Hendrickson would appear to have lost all credibility with admitting that the software is downloaded and then subscribed to and yet later saying that the model of providing the software as a perpetual license couldn't be done because of the brutal software development and that they weren't happy with the results. The only thing that changes is the licensing model not the software.

In my opinion, Adobe appears evasive and disingenuous in this article.

Photoshop @ 20 USD / month = 720 USD / 3 Years. That is the budget for updating a DSLR body or adding a major lens to the tool box of an enthusiast photographer. In short, for many enthusiast photographer Photoshop it is now out of reach. This means Lightroom becomes the only photography SW or Lightroom + GIMP in case you want Panoramas, Merging, Layers, Pixel accurate editing. I am really surprised about Adobes attitude to remove the entire enthusiast photographer from the Photoshop Customer Base. More surprised at the arrogance of the interview to dodge every serious question, which is adding insult to injury.

Photoshop CS6 has many functions, that a photographer does not need, who is not using Illustrator, Premiere, After Effects or Cinema 4D. However Photoshop Elements is lacking in basic functions you want on high quality Photo Editing. I think the problem is that a Version is missing sitting between PSE and CS6. Designed for Photographers. Priced at say 8 USD / month.

I smell a class action lawsuit against Adobe again as it is happened back in 2011. This would be a very juicy case for trial lawyers with a possible settlement up to few hundred million dollars. See the FreeHand case.http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/05/05/Freehand.pdf

After being a loyal Adobe purchaser for over a decade I will for the first time start looking for alternative providers. I understand the need of companies to change their policies but that understanding doesn't require me to continue to purchase from them. Hopefully another firm will step into the void being created and take advantage of this opportunity.

A true story: Decades ago the leading E-CAD vendor introduced a hardware dongle as copy protection. It plugged into the printer port and thus you could not print anymore. Real bummer on a CAD workstation. ( This was before printing over network ). Our CAD department was very upset, because the only way to print was to obtain a cracked SW. We never used such thing before. So in the first year we paid for the SW with dongle, but used the cracked version. However, in the subsequent years of new versions, the cracked version remained but new licenses were no longer purchased. The inhibition barrier of using a cracked version was broken. I truly wonder if this new move from Adobe will decrease or increase illegal copy installations ?

I'm over it. I accept that Photoshop is in the cloud and that Lightroom isn't far behind (in spite of Mr. Hendrickson's assurances). I am planning on an Adobe-free PC and me becoming more profiicient with competing products that once were used as a complement to Adobe's.

What I am most troubled about, and I've not seen anyone thinking about it, is the incentive for updating software and improving technology. Think about it, if the software is sold, then Adobe has a huge incentive to better their product up so that the costumer buys a new version and keep the cash flow. If the software is rented (and if that is the only choice the customer has) then the cash flow is guaranteed and there is little incentive to improve the product. The only incentive to improve will be fear of competition, which means that the competition will have to not only become slightly better than Adobe, but much better because of the natural resistance to change of the human being. As we all know, there is no possible competition of this quality at this stage...

Of course, this will not happen immediately (or else, everyone would switch back to CS6) but I'm counting on it to happen in a few years...

Got it nailed, Adobe realise they have run their race. There is only so much that can be of practical improvement to make the consumer cough up their hard earned. So when you run out of ideas go the pay up or we withhold route.

The German computer mags publishing house heise brought it to the point on their website:

Adobe gets rid of a lot of problems at once:They don't have to animate their customers buying a new product/update every 2 yearsthe regular automatic updates have to be just good enough not to loose existing subscribersthe number of existing creative suites combinations has been drastically reduced, saving Adobe a lot of money.And in addition they don't have to cope with the used software market and transfer of licences.

Massively lowering their costs without giving a price advantage to their customers sounds like printing money.I am afraid in case Adobe get through with it, this model will be copied by many other software makers.

I am already older. I went through several very tough economic down turns. Since then I am extremely cautious to add a monthly expense to my portfolio. Last month it was a done decision to add Adobe Premiere to our Portfolio of tools. Now we will re-evaluate. Can we still buy the latest copy as non CC ? Do we cancel Videos as media for our Web Site ? Is there another alternative ?

If you make money by using Creative SW and you will get into a financial pinch you might be forced not to pay your monthly lease for your Creative SW. Then you rob yourself from the tools you need to make money. Seems kind of an odd sales pitch to creative professional customers. In the old days being in a pinch, you forgo upgrading to the latest and greatest but you could keep working with the SW you were familiar with, you worked harder, and eventually all was better again. But now ???

"Creative SW and you will get into a financial pinch you might be forced not to pay your monthly lease for your Creative SW. Then you rob yourself from the tools you need to make money

Exactly, this is what is wrong with this model, once you are in it, there is 0 access to the tools even if you have paid for 10 years and need to pause for few months because you lost your job or times are tough.

This is totally unacceptable for me, it will hold you hostage of ADBE. I rather invest in a workflow and tools that are always available no matter what.

I have been laid off twice in my life, so I know it can happen any time. When that happens you cut as many expenses as you can, specially monthly bills.

Shame on you, too, DPR. Tossing such soft lobs. Expecting such negative reaction? When the subject was first broached months ago the reaction was quick, plentiful and negative. The confirmation yesterday only unleashed the torrent and DRP "asks" if Adobe was surprised???!!!

The 'cloud' is utility computing. CPU, storage, bandwidth, identity management, database management, service bus, queues, cache, load-balancing... All the things companies have been using for many, many years, but delivered to software builders in a consumption-based model, allowing for rapid scale-out to meet growing needs (maybe traffic bursts, for instance) and removing the need for managing physical hardware or committing to long-term resource leasing. Anything you work with online today is using some form of computing, whether cloud or not, and opaque to you (as it should be). Sometimes the cloud offers lower-cost solutions to those software builders, but sometimes it can be more expensive but allow for burst scenarios to be handled without capital investment.

Adobe charging more for a subscription-based model has nothing to do with the definition and usefulness of cloud computing. That's just their new business model.

Meaning is you will now have a monthly expense. Your cable bill, your phone bill, your rent, and so on. You can add Photoshop to your monthly expenses. In the future when we have another economic downturn you have deciede what to cut back. Will you cut back on Photoshop?

Also like my rent, phone bill, cable, gas and so on them seem to alway go up. Most go up in slowly. Five years now Creative Cloud could be expensive option

Adobe could easily use this periodic on-line license checking simply to prevent piracy and ensure users have purchased their software. That could work perfectly well with minimal inconvenience and still allow users to decide when to stick with superseded capability indefinitely (at no further cost) and when to pay for an upgrade. As it is Adobe are just being unreasonably greedy and will certainly deter many potential customers.

I'd say that shot captured the essence of this jerk. Pure arrogance. The Cloud as Adobe has implemented it doesn't bother me. What does bother me is that what has cost me $170 every 18 months (PS Standard...all I need) with NAPP discount will now cost me $360 for the same time period. That's not a price increase. That is gouging, pure and simple. The attitude expressed by Adobe that they have given photographers a bone by saving them $70 an upgrade on LR is insulting.

The message is that Adobe no longer wants photographers. Look at CC pricing: Designers and video guys who have historically bought the entire Creative Suite are getting a huge deal with CC. This is being subsidized by photographers who only want PS, who are getting a royal screwing.

I hope that some of the plugin companies like OnOne take note of this. Lost PS sales means lost sales for them too. Perhaps they need to lead the charge iin developing a PS replacement for us unwashed photographers.

Photoline is not good raw conversion software, and doesn't extract many raw formats. Pixelmator may not do raw and is Mac only. Corel's Paintshop is a decent editor, like Photoline, but doesn't do raw conversion well.

Gimp is perfectly good freeware, provided they've fixed the print resizing disaster from v2.6 on Windows at least, but it doesn't convert any raw formats.

Why does Adobe think that if you live in China you can read Chinese ?I just went to the page linked above to read more information about Adobe CC. Since I live in China, it suggest the Chinese Adobe Page, which is in Chinese ? This is not helpful to me. I live in China, but do not speak Chinese ( I am German ). I then can choose the American Website, but most likely they will not allow me to buy their license there, since my Bank and Home Address is Chinese. But the Chinese Page I can't read, as it is available only in Chinese. How to solve this problem ?

it's the same with a lot of software companies. they think we're too stupid to know what we actually want to see.

example: english is a second language for me, but i speak it fluently. one of the reasons is that, for a long time, it was the only language computer programs had on their interfaces. now, whenever i see a localized version with my native tongue in the UI i get very confused and change it to english as soon as possible. i just can't deal with translated UIs, because the terminology is not really that helpful in languages other than english.

i also don't like it when, after being forcibly redirected to a local version of the website, the downloaded program only has one language option. and it's not english.

Go to the american support site. They usually have a livechat option. I had once a live chat. Don't expect too much since the support people from the chat seem to sit in India and have english as a second language. But try it anyway, maybe they can point out a solution to you. Ich bin übrgigens auch aus Deutschland ;-)

and that's why market segmentation is a really bad idea. if i have the ability to obtain a product from a different country through legal means, why is it that my money is not good anymore?

different story, same cause: i got my GH2 camera from the US, i live in Europe. the camera can only cancel out 60Hz lighting flicker, not 50Hz. maybe Panasonic expects us to buy different cameras when we travel to other continents? or should we just stay home?

@ SkilliardThanks for your answer. I might have to do that. But it is becoming very painful:a) significant cost increase over update every other releaseb) I need to fear that key validation can be blocked anytime by Great China Firewall and I loose my access to my filesc) I even can no longer simply buy the SW, I need to go to they tech support hoping they can help me.

Since a while I was on the edge between PS more cool but very expensive and GIMP for free but need to spend more time. The added three troubles above might have pushed me to drop PS for good once CS6 becomes to out dated. And it already gave me a pause to buy Premiere, which we decided to do already.

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